It’s not often that Apple products go on sale, but when they do fans make sure to seize the moment. Apple managed to sell an average of 11 iPads every hour at its retail location in Minneapolis’ Mall of America on Black Friday, according to data collected by analysts at Piper Jaffray.

The research firm conducted an experiment in which it monitored activity at both the Apple store and Microsoft Store for a total of 10 hours on the national shoppers holiday. The competing retail shops are across the hall from one another in the Mall of America, and the Piper Jaffray crew observed the Apple store for eight hours and the Microsoft for two. The findings had shown that Apple proved tor reign supreme for Black Friday shoppers, especially in the tablet territory.

Foot traffic alone at Microsoft’s location was 47 percent less than that of Apple’s, the survey indicated. In terms of sales, Apple reportedly sold 17.2 items per hours while Microsoft only pushed out 3.5 items per hour. All but two of the items purchased from the Microsoft store were Xbox games, Fortune reported. But perhaps the most soul-crushing moment for Microsoft was the reception (or lack thereof) of its Surface tablet on Black Friday.

“Despite heavy TV, print and billboard advertising for the new Microsoft Surface tablet, not one was sold during the two hours Piper Jaffray spent monitoring that store. Doesn’t bode well for Microsoft’s answer to the iPad,” the experiment results read.

Although Apple experienced an increase in traffic throughout its store, sales were down compared to previous years. In 2011 the Mall of America Apple store sold about 14 iPads each hour, and in 2010 it sold approximately eight per hour. This year, excluding iPad Mini sales, the Apple store only sold an average of 6.7 iPads each hour. According to the data, about 4.3 iPad Mini units were sold each hour, bringing the iPad total to about 11 per hour.

Mac sales were way down this year, as the Apple store only sold about four each hour compared to the 10 sold hourly in 2011. In 2010, about eight Macs were sold every hour, which is nearly the same as the year before that. About four years ago in 2008, the Apple store averaged 13 Mac sales each hour. This is the second highest number on the chart, only topped by iPad sales from 2011.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster attributed this lull to the slowdown ahead of Apple’s new iMac. The spike in store traffic, however, probably resulted from shopper eager to see Apple’s new iPad Mini.

There is still about an entire month left for holiday shoppers, so we’re sure both Apple will see more sales and last-minute gift orders in the weeks to come.